Steve Ballmer's annual letter to shareholders makes it very clear Microsoft is at a point of no return - and in the middle of a transition into a hardware company. "This is a significant shift, both in what we do and how we see ourselves - as a devices and services company. It impacts how we run the company, how we develop new experiences, and how we take products to market for both consumers and businesses." Line. Sand.

MS were always a hardware company. They produces keyboards, mices and other peropherals. Now they just want to copy Apple and produce their own PCs [yes, tablet IS a PC in my understanding, as it belongs to you and has processing power - it computes and it's personal].

Now, I don't find it shocking. I'm actually quite happy they're doing that. I hope they wil eventually step out from this "OEM" crap we're seeing today and investing their time and effort in their own crap. This way I won't be forced to buy MS Windows with new hardware [as other vendors may just simply want to compete with MS using other OS, like GNU/Linux, which I'm hoping for]. Plus, all the crap MS wants to add [DRMs, TPMs and stuff] would not be forced on other hardware vendors.